The Invitation(62)

His skin feels feverishly hot. He reaches for the catch to open the porthole just as light explodes through the room, illuminating the whole cabin. He sits back on the bed, disorientated. Seconds later the thunder follows: a great roar of noise, fire and dynamite. The silence that follows the commotion is textured, unlike the quiet that preceded it. He waits, tensed, for the next assault. It comes sooner than expected, with greater ferocity.

He goes back to the window to try and see anything, but all is dark, and the only thing he can make out is the black gleam of the water. No rain yet. The air crackles. And now there is wind, beginning to rustle and then moan about the boat, whistling in the rigging.

A cry – a human cry, he thinks, but high as an animal’s. Then, following on its tail, another catastrophe of light. A terrible splintering, wrenching, tearing sound – then the sigh of something falling: a crash that reverberates through the whole space.

Now there are shouts, footsteps running. The yacht seems filled with hundreds of men, ten times the number that are actually aboard. Hal, finally, is properly awake. He runs to the door and flings it open. Outside in the corridor is a scene of panic. Roberto and another member of staff thunder past. Someone is sobbing wretchedly.

He follows the men up to the deck, where he finds a scene of devastation. Where the main mast once stood is a smoking stump. Scattered about it are the remains of the rest of it: flakes of ash, smouldering chunks like the remnants left in the grate after a fire. The rain, now, has finally begun, and it drenches everything, leaving a sorry, black mess.

The men, ready to act but unable to do anything to help the situation, pick listlessly through the charred remains.

Hal remembers the cry. He goes to Roberto, who is surveying the damage, looking perhaps the happiest Hal has ever seen him.

‘Was anyone hurt?’

‘No,’ Roberto says, with something unmistakably like regret.

‘I heard a scream, I thought someone …’

‘Ah, yes – one of the signoras, she took a great fright at the flash. She saw it all happen. She is inside, very upset.’ He points to the stern of the boat, and Hal sees that the weeper, surprisingly, is Giulietta Castiglione.

‘I hate storms,’ she says, furiously, when Hal approaches, dabbing at her blotched face. For the first time since Hal has met her, she looks less than groomed: her nightdress crumpled, her hair static. Her face without make-up is vulnerable-looking, like a superhero divested of his mask. Stella and Gaspari sit with her, muttering words of calm. Earl Morgan sits in one of the chairs, rubbing his eyes and looking about groggily.

The only person who does not emerge until the last possible moment is Aubrey Boyd. His silvery head appears at the top of the stairs, followed by the rest of him, clad in a pair of maroon silk pyjamas and a chinoiserie robe. He peers about himself in bemusement.

‘What is this all in aid of?’ He sounds vaguely peevish, as though the gathering is a party to which he has not been invited.

‘The storm …’ Hal begins, and then stops, because surely it is obvious.

‘Storm?’ Aubrey blinks at him. ‘Wasn’t aware of any storm.’ Now he sees the stump of the mast. ‘Good Lord.’

‘Yes,’ Hal says. ‘We were hit.’

‘With what? Thor’s hammer?’

‘Lightning.’

‘Well.’ A pause. ‘How thrilling.’

The Contessa returns from where she has been talking with Roberto. She makes a little twist of her mouth.

‘It does not look good, my friends. The second mast will have to be mended before we can sail all the way to San Remo. But, as with all things in life, there is a positive. We are not far away from my husband, who is staying at our tower near Cervo. We can limp our way there, Roberto tells me, and wait while the yacht is mended.’





24


The castle sits high on a sward of land that plunges into the water below. When the lifeboat draws closer the slope separates into different iterations of green, and as they lurch towards shore in the little tender, Gaspari turns to Hal. ‘This is all quite an adventure, no? Something for you to write about.’

‘I suppose it is.’ Hal lowers his voice. ‘What is the Conte like?’

‘Ah,’ Gaspari whispers, glancing at their hostess, who is turned away from them, toward the shore. ‘Quite as unique as our wonderful Contessa – they are an excellent match.’ And then he smiles. This time it is not that downward smile Hal has become accustomed to, but a real smile – one that transforms his face. He would never be considered a handsome man, Hal thinks, but it lends his features their own unusual charm.

They unload their bags onto a stone jetty. Above them a flight of steps ascends some fifty feet toward the castle. Hal makes a move towards Stella’s bag but she grabs it instead. ‘It’s fine. I can do it.’

He goes to pick up Gaspari’s bag instead, knowing that the director is too frail to manage the climb with the burden.

‘Don’t,’ Gaspari says, seeing what he is doing. Hal mistakes it for pride, at first, but then he says, ‘The Contessa will call them. I’ve seen this before.’ He points at the stone wall of the cliff. Partially hidden beneath the trailing fronds of ivy is a brass telephone. The Contessa goes to it, lifts the receiver and waits. All watch and listen. Now the tinny rattle of an answering voice can be heard through it. The Contessa speaks into it, rapidly, then she turns to the group and gives a thumbs up – a gesture that, from her, somehow appears wonderfully incongruous.